In Colombia, Big Tech Lobbyists Weakened Regulation to Protect Children's Mental Health

This article is part of the project "The Invisible Hand of Big Tech," led by Agência Pública and El Centro Latinoamericano de Investigación Periodística (CLIP), with the participation of 15 other organizations — including Tech Policy Press — from 13 countries. Read more about the project and find other articles in the series here.

The allegations are chilling. Children, some under the age of 14, are being blackmailed with the exposure of intimate videos on social media. In many cases, they are driven to the point of contemplating suicide. One of the most common forms of harassment is via instant messaging, which, once it starts, is difficult to stop. There is also a proliferation of sexually explicit images created with artificial intelligence that include the faces of children and circulate online without any regulations or rules to stop them.

These cases are the most visible sign of a risk that parents, educators, authorities, and health personnel have been warning about for years. Other content, such as how to commit suicide, is also a cause for concern. A study conducted in 2024 by the University of Los Andes found that 1 in 5 Colombian children reported having seen ways to harm or injure themselves on the internet, and 17% consulted ways to take their own lives. The majority of those who viewed this content were women.

"There were bloodstains in his closet, and when I took him to the doctor, his arm was all cut up," says Lesley, a mother in Bogotá, about the first mental health crisis she noticed in her son. That was the first sign of a downward spiral that led to a psychiatric diagnosis and two hospitalizations. At the time, he was 14 years old. He had recently received his own cell phone and computer.

"We always trusted," says Lesley, "that the decisions he would make would be the right ones." But she soon began to suspect that what he was doing online was influencing the problem. His psychiatrists agreed and asked Leslie to try to set limits on his content consumption, but she couldn't do it. Not only because he is much more digitally savvy than she is, but also because his relationship with devices and platforms is problematic. "When his computer breaks, it's like his life is over," she says. "His tantrums became aggressive. They were physical attacks for limiting his computer use."

When Congress tried to legislate on the issue, the interests of the so-called Big Tech companies (such as Google and Meta) clashed with those seeking to better protect minors. It's not personal: it's business. For Juan David Gutiérrez, a professor at the School of Government at the University of the Andes, "private companies want legislation that does not increase their operating costs" and "they will want to block bills that prevent them from operating under the conditions they want."

This dispute was evident in the approval of Bill 029/24S on mental health, authored by Representative Olga Lucía Velásquez (Green Party). The initiative sought to ensure that platforms comply with regulations agreed upon with the Communications Regulatory Commission (CRC) to stop distribution of content that "threatens" the integrity, well-being, and physical and mental health of children and adolescents. It went through two debates in the House and one in the Senate without attracting much attention until it was time for its final debate at the end of 2024.

From that moment on, the technology industry lobby moved its silent phalanx. With the force of its influence, built up over years of invitations, meetings, and events with congressmen, it managed to thwart this regulatory effort. This was identified by the Centro Lationamericano de Investigación Periodística (CLIP) and Cuestión Pública, partners in the collaborative investigation The Invisible Hand of Big Tech, led by Agencia Pública de Brasil and CLIP, which brought together 17 media outlets who investigated Big Tech influence actions in 13 countries.

Big Tech used a well-oiled machine of lobbyists, lawyers, and allies who approach or visit congressmen to express proposals, concerns, or interests on the issues they are legislating. This scaffolding—which is legal—participates in public hearings or meetings on bills. It even co-organizes academic events with legislators.

This journalistic alliance asked the companies and individuals involved in this lobbying operation whether their economic interests prevailed over the well-being of their users in the discussion of this bill. Amazon responded that this is not an accurate description of events, without providing further details. Google, Meta, and the Latin American Internet Association did not respond directly to the question. TikTok had not responded to a questionnaire sent by this journalistic alliance, until deadline.

The article of contention

Bringing a law into force in Colombia is a lengthy process. Each initiative has up to two years, or two legislative periods, to complete the process. The Mental Health bill sought to amend the law that had regulated mental health care since 2013. It was filed on July 25, 2023, in the House of Representatives to be approved before June 20, 2025. During that time, it had to pass four mandatory debates: the first two in committee and plenary session in the House, and then the same in the Senate. It also had to go through a possible reconciliation to resolve any differences between the texts approved in the two chambers.

The initiative—unique in Colombia for its scope in this area—succeeded. But there was an invisible hand at work. In order to survive the political negotiations, it ended up sacrificing one of its most ambitious promises: to protect children and adolescents from harmful content on digital platforms. Instead, it left Big Tech in charge of a regulatory function that, according to the authors of the bill, required the participation of the state.

That promise was embodied in Article 8, which included two points that were at the heart of the controversy. The first was to grant the Communications Regulatory Commission (CRC) the power to intervene in the formulation of codes of conduct for digital platforms, a concept known as "co-regulation." The second was the possibility of sanctioning those platforms if they failed to comply with the agreements in those codes. These were the sharpest edges of a law that, otherwise, aroused little controversy.

These points remained in the bill until it was approved in its first debate in the Senate on October 22 of that year. As confirmed by this journalistic alliance with various sources, the technology industry and its lobbyists began their influence campaign from that day until December 16, when the final debate was scheduled.

When this happens, the activity goes far beyond Congress. In a matter of days, two ministries, civil society organizations, trade associations, and regulators sent comments on the bill. "Once the debates began, comments and requests for meetings were received from interested parties," Ana Paola Agudelo, senator for the Mira Party and coordinator of the initiative, told this alliance.

Big Tech's six to one in Congress

It was November 18, shortly after 2 p.m., when six representatives of Big Tech companies arrived at Congress, one by one: Irene Velandia from Google; Brian Townsend from Meta; Gabriel Parra from TikTok; Aura María Londoño and Santiago Orduz from Amazon; and Pablo Nieto from the Latin American Internet Association (ALAI), the regional trade association that brings together these four companies and ten others.

According to the minutes, they were going to see Senator Agudelo, the bill's sponsor. What happened after that visit was decisive for the direction of the Mental Health Law.

"Ana Paola did tell me that the companies were very concerned about the bill," said a source who was aware of these conversations and asked not to be named. They were concerned "whether or not what was being proposed could be considered censorship."

Agudelo admitted to Cuestión Pública and CLIP that these meetings did take place and that they sought to "hear concerns and comments regarding the articles."

We asked Senator Agudelo and each of these individuals and companies about the topics discussed at that meeting, and they declined to comment on what was said.

The “censorship” argument also appeared in a public letter that Nieto, ALAI's regional manager of Public Policy for the Andean Zone, sent to Congress on December 6. In it, he said that the powers of the CRC could "restrict information diversity" and lead to prior censorship. He also pointed out that the Commission had no experience in regulating digital content.

The Karisma Foundation sent its own opinion, expressing concern about another issue: it argued that the CRC's new function could "exceed the commission's capacity": there would be so much content to review that it would be unable to cope without sufficient resources. The foundation was also concerned about the mention of "self-regulation" in other parts of the bill, an observation that foreshadowed what would ultimately happen: it said that such a mention could strip the CRC of its regulatory powers.

Amid the tension, the Regulatory Commission responded that there could be no talk of censorship because "in no case (...) would it remove content from users or platforms," but rather it could impose "subsequent sanctions" after the content was published and only in the event of non-compliance with the rules.

The effect of the lobbying was seen in the text of the bill, submitted for final debate by Agudelo and Fabián Díaz, the other senator presenting the bill, on November 21. Both removed the word "co-regulation." However, they maintained the Commission's power to make recommendations to platforms to moderate content and to sanction those that failed to comply. That text, the report says, was "the product of observations and consensus between the CRC and representatives of digital platforms" and, according to several sources, sought to reassure Big Tech.

Despite this concession, the tech companies continued to push the envelope. In a speech by Green Alliance Party Senator Jonathan Pulido Hernández, better known as Jota Pe, he acted as spokesperson for two industry associations: "I have here, for example, Asomóvil and CCIT [who] say: 'we have not approved Article 8 because we believe it borders on censorship.'"

He was referring to Asomóvil, which represents mobile operators, and the Colombian Chamber of Information Technology and Telecommunications (CCIT), which brings together dozens of companies in the sector. In the same speech, Jota Pe cited a document signed by seven industry associations—including Asomóvil and CCIT—and a civil society organization, appealing to many of the same arguments already put forward by ALAI. In a proposal, which he filed together with Senator Alfredo Deluque Zuleta from La Guajira, he called for the elimination of Article 8.

Camilo Rojas Chitiva, Asomóvil's regulatory manager, told this journalistic alliance that the association did not interact directly with Senator Hernández. "Much less did it do so in terms of approving or not approving, or giving the green light or not," he said. The CCIT did not respond to a questionnaire sent by this journalistic alliance.

Senator Jota Pe Hernández speaks in the Senate with a document in hand outlining the concerns of industry associations regarding the bill.

In response to this alliance, Senator Jota Pe clarified that he did not meet "with union spokespeople or representatives of any particular sector. To form my position on the bill, I took into account the presentation made by the initiative's sponsors and the arguments raised during the plenary debate."

For his part, Deluque responded to this alliance by saying that "the initial proposal for elimination responded to the need to open the debate on the article, which, according to the analysis of my legislative team and my own review, presented possible risks [...] that could affect freedom of expression."

When Hernández stepped down from the podium, negotiations began at a desk in the Elliptical Hall. On one side was Representative Velásquez, author of the bill and proponent of co-regulation with the platforms. On the other side was the camp aligned with the arguments of the tech companies, made up of Senators Jota Pe, Deluque, and David Luna.

The allies of Big Tech

All three belong to the First Senate Committee. Jota Pe was a well-known YouTuber from Bucaramanga who received a gold plaque from YouTube, a Google company, for reaching one million followers on his account. Deluque is a senator from La Guajira who was a telecommunications executive and union leader in that sector. Luna was ICT Minister and then director of a technology industry union.

Luna went from being ICT Minister between 2014 and 2018, during Juan Manuel Santos' second term, to being the first director of Alianza In, a technology entrepreneurship union that also signed the letter. Although he spoke in plenary against Article 8, he did not vote and stated that he was prevented from doing so. Nor did he participate in the proposal of his two colleagues.

Deluque has legislated on technology. In 2023, he was one of the authors of a bill that sought to create a digital security agency, and in the last legislative session, he promoted four other initiatives on digital issues, including "fair regulation for transportation platforms."

He is also the congressman who received the most visits from representatives of technology associations between September 2022 and October 2024, according to information obtained through a right of petition to Congress submitted by this journalistic alliance. The Big Tech lobbyist who visited him most during that period was Santiago Orduz of AWS, who recorded eight visits to Congress authorized by Deluque. He was followed by Santiago Pinzón of the National Association of Entrepreneurs (ANDI) with seven visits, and Aura María Londoño Sánchez of Amazon with two.

Deluque made his position on the regulation of artificial intelligence (AI) clear at the Mexico Digital Summit, a conference he attended as a speaker in September 2024 to talk about inclusion and AI. There, he explained how "we had the good sense in the Colombian Congress to put the brakes on all regulation; there were more or less 10 bills about regulating AI." The trip, as confirmed by the senator, was paid for by a private think tank based in Miami called CCLATAM, which promotes dialogue on public policy around innovation, as stated in its mission.

Between 2021 and 2025, Deluque attended 16 international events related to the technology sector as a congressman, as confirmed to this alliance (see details in multimedia element). All were financed by the organizers, except for one that he paid for himself, according to the senator.

The Colombian Chamber of Information Technology and Telecommunications (CCIT), one of the associations that "had not given its approval" to Article 8—and which signed the joint letter read by Senator Jota Pe in plenary—partially financed one of those trips in 2024. This was a visit to the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain, and to a ministerial summit in Madrid from February 17 to March 2. Among the members of the CCIT are Amazon, Google, and Meta, three of the four companies that visited Senator Agudelo when the Mental Health bill was being discussed.

In 2025, the CCIT partially funded another trip to Spain for Deluque, between February 24 and March 7. This time it was a roundtable on technology regulation in Barcelona, which took place simultaneously with the 2025 edition of the MWC. The topic to be discussed was precisely "regulatory principles to balance the playing field of the digital ecosystem with the user at the center."

Could this funding constitute a potential conflict of interest? Andrés Hernández, director of Transparency for Colombia, says it could. "The best way to have resolved this would have been a clear disclosure of the congressman's activities," Hernández said. In fact, Deluque never declared this conflict in the final debate on the law. "The absence of such an explanation does leave a feeling that there could have been a significant risk of undue influence," Hernández added.

Senator Alfredo Deluque responded to this journalistic alliance, saying, "I do not agree with that characterization. Participation in official multilateral events cannot be equated with undue influence, as these are public, open, and pluralistic settings (...) The two events in which partial support from the CCIT is noted were strictly official in nature, with the participation of Colombian government and legislative delegations." The CCIT did not respond to questions sent by this journalistic alliance.

Senator Deluque's closeness to industry representatives was on display at an event at the Externado University of Colombia in May 2025. The speakers were Big Tech employees, civil society representatives, and other congressmen. In a speech, Brian Townsend, Meta's Public Policy Manager for Spanish-speaking South America, acknowledged the senator's openness: "I am grateful to Senator Deluque for involving us in the development of public policy."

Neither Meta nor Townsend responded to questions about the executive's remarks. The company sent the following statement: "Like many companies in different industries and geographies, we interact with officials, trade groups, and organizations to share information about our products and services and to contribute to discussions that may impact Meta or the experiences of users on our platforms."

The anti-regulatory victory

According to two sources consulted, the tech companies' lobbying strategy was to sink Article 8 or remove the sanctions and new powers it gave to the CRC. In other words, what Senators Jota Pe and Deluque proposed in their proposal.

The strategy worked. The text approved by the Senate was tailored to the tech companies. Not only did it deny the CRC the power to co-regulate harmful content circulating on digital services and sanction companies. It also upheld, in the words of Senator Agudelo, "the self-regulation that the platforms have asked of us." In other words, it kept in their hands the exclusive responsibility for moderating content that is harmful to children and adolescents.

As things stand, each platform will be able to continue defining its own rules autonomously and decide what it allows or does not allow. This includes how much content about hateful behavior or incitement to violence it tolerates. Because there are no universal standards, what may be considered a hate crime or abusive behavior in one place may be protected by the right to free expression in another.

In general, the most popular platforms, such as TikTok, Instagram, or Facebook, take measures to prevent some of the most harmful content. For example, on these platforms, searching for the word "suicide" does not display content, but rather refers to a help panel with national helplines and channels or expert suggestions. They also have different types of parental controls and directly prohibit different types of harmful content.

When you search for the word "suicide" on TikTok, no content is displayed; instead, you are directed to a help panel with national helplines and channels or expert suggestions.

But in Colombia, a study by the Communications Regulatory Commission, published in 2025, concluded that only 48 percent of parents of minors use the child protection tools designed to filter audiovisual content on platforms, and only 34 percent use them on social media.

Representative Velásquez, author of the bill, had to give in. She did so, she says, because completely deleting the controversial article would have eliminated the obligation to conduct mental health education and promotion campaigns in the media. It would also have eliminated the obligation to issue parental control warnings and information on care routes in content about suicide.

This was the result of the amendment to Article 8 of the mental health bill signed by the coordinating rapporteurs, the author, and the senators who presented the proposal.

As the bill originated in the Chamber of Deputies and the text approved there provided for co-regulation and sanctions, it had to be reconciled in order to deliver a single bill for presidential approval.

In the latter instance, the pressure did not let up. Pablo Nieto, from ALAI, sent a new concept on February 26 asking that the wording that came out of the Senate be maintained. The Colombian Chamber of Electronic Commerce did the same seven days earlier.

And Big Tech won again. The Mental Health Law was approved as it came from the Senate, without co-regulation or sanctions for them.

For Velásquez, this is the only loophole in the law, as "sanctions generate greater joint responsibility." The two senators who presented the bill, Fabián Díaz and Ana Paola Agudelo, expressed similar views separately. "Self-regulation is a necessary measure, but clearly not absolute," said Díaz.

This concern also exists among experts in digital rights. Lucía Camacho, public policy coordinator for the organization Derechos Digitales, said that as it stands, the law perpetuates a state of affairs that does not work: "The self-regulation approach is insufficient because it needs complementary efforts of active regulation by the states," she said.

For its part, the Karisma Foundation pointed out in a communication to this alliance that "the inclusion of the word 'self-regulation' in the bill is problematic. Although the final rule is unclear, we believe it could be used by social media platforms to refuse to comply with orders from state agencies."

Another alternative would be that, if the state does not have a role in regulation, it will function independently of companies. In other words, "it should be able to serve as a counterweight to the gaps, or errors, or decisions [of the platforms] that respond more to their business model than to the public interest," explained Catalina Botero Marino, who was part of Meta's Oversight Board. "And that is very difficult," she added.

Botero added that although she believes it is better for self-regulation to "exist than not exist," she considers "co-regulation" to be better.

Senator Jota Pe responded, "I don't know if they 'took the teeth out' of the article, as some point out... Self-regulation by platforms was not understood as the only measure, but as part of a comprehensive strategy that combines prevention, education, institutional oversight, and coordinated state action."

Behind the scenes

This journalistic alliance identified that the technology sector lobbyist who visited Congress most often during that period (between July 2022 and August 2025) was José Daniel López, a former House Representative (Cambio Radical party), who is currently the director of Alianza IN, an applications guild. The second was Pablo Nieto, from the Latin American Internet Association, who visits Congress at least once a month on average.

López responded to this alliance by saying that "this figure must be contextualized by the fact that the Congress facilities house the offices of more than 280 senators and representatives, as well as their staff members," and that engaging in these interactions with members of Congress "is legitimate and an essential part of our work as a union."

In a statement sent to this alliance, ALAI assures that its employees' interactions "with government officials and parliamentarians are carried out through the usual formal channels of communication for each country."

Founded in Uruguay in 2015, ALAI is funded by 14 technology companies. Among these are Google, Meta, Amazon, TikTok, Rappi, and Mercado Libre. In Colombia, its visible face is Nieto: a young political scientist who has visited congressmen in their offices 24 times, as documented by this alliance. He has also participated in at least 10 congressional events and five public events with legislators or public officials since October 2023, when he joined ALAI after serving as a legislative advisor to the Ministry of Finance.

"Our team is made up of top-level professionals who carry out all their activities with seriousness, professionalism, and in accordance with our code of ethics, our statutes, and in strict compliance with the laws of each country," says ALAI in response to this journalistic alliance.

In April 2025, ALAI organized the "Annual Digital Policy Dialogues" in Mexico City. Analysis of public photos of the event confirmed the attendance of 15 legislators and officials from 10 countries. Five of them are Colombian: Representatives Diego Caicedo, Ciro Rodríguez, Daniel Restrepo Carmona, and Irma Luz Herrera, and Senator Carlos Guevara. The latter two belong to the Mira Party, the same party as the senator sponsoring the bill, Ana Paola Agudelo. Caicedo, Guevara, and Herrera confirmed to this journalistic alliance that ALAI paid their travel expenses.

Rodríguez did not respond directly, but referred the request to the House of Representatives Secretary, which has not responded. Carmona has not yet provided the information.

A congressman from another country who attended the event in Mexico told this journalistic alliance that ALAI paid for his economy class travel and lodged him in a "no-frills" hotel in the city center. "They convey their ideas, they don't ask for anything in return. They don't make you feel uncomfortable because they don't pressure you. It's a friendly tone and an exchange of ideas," said this source, who asked to remain anonymous. ALAI did not respond to specific questions about the event.

The mental health debt owed to children and adolescents

"Often we are not heard, or they believe that what we are doing is not enough," said Brian Townsend, Meta's executive for this region, at the event in which Senator Deluque also participated last May. According to Representative Olga Velásquez, experts consulted, and the CRC, Big Tech is not doing enough to reduce its negative impact.

The role of these digital platforms was part of the discussion from the first debate on the Mental Health bill. On the one hand, because at least 70% of children and adolescents in Colombia access content on the internet, 61% have their own mobile device, and 40% have social media accounts, according to a study published in 2025 by the CRC.

On the other hand, because the concern to improve mental health coverage and quality in the country, especially for children, is becoming increasingly urgent.

The Montserrat Clinic, a psychiatric institution in Bogotá, opened a ward for adolescents in 2022. "Before, it was very rare to see one or two minors hospitalized," María Fernanda Bonilla, coordinator of the child and adolescent unit, told this alliance. "Now we have 20 beds and sometimes we even have to expand to other units because we can't keep up with the demand for care for children."

This is just one symptom of what the specialist calls "an increase in mental health consultations for children and adolescents." After years of relative stability and a decline during the pandemic, official figures in Colombia reveal a 41.2% increase in suicide attempts among minors under the age of 17 between 2022 and 2021. The figure continues to rise by 0.7% in 2023.

Concerns about mental health led Congress to file eight bills related to this issue between 2022 and 2023. All were shelved because they did not meet the deadlines for debate.

Only one of them, proposed by members of Congress from the Conservative Party, questioned the role of social media and sought to adopt measures to prevent, among other things, addiction to it. How this would be achieved was unclear, and the proposal did not include control over the content hosted on digital platforms. But it did not even make it to debate.

Dr. Bonilla warns that mental health problems can develop due to various factors. Many of the educators, activists, academics, industry representatives, and politicians consulted agreed that the care of children and adolescents is a responsibility shared by many sectors: families, educational institutions, the state, among others. As Senator Diaz said, the problem "will not be solved solely and exclusively by regulating digital content."

But social media algorithms play a role in mental health that cannot be ignored, Dr. Bonilla pointed out. "If you start searching for or viewing content from people who are exposing death or suicide, the algorithm starts to bring up more and more. And the fact that the person is seeing more people who want to commit suicide, or more content about death on social media, can worsen their emotional state."

But Congress decided to take away the state's ability to counterbalance that algorithm. And it did so because, contrary to what Townsend said, Big Tech was listened to. Perhaps too much.

Below are the complete responses sent by the participants in this investigation.

Alfredo Deluque, Senador Partido de la U

Jota Pe Hernández, Senador Partido Verde

David Luna, Exsenador Cambio Radical

Fabián Díaz, Senador Partido Verde

Ana Paola Agudelo, Senadora Partido Mira

Alianza In

Asociación Latinoamericana de Internet (ALAI)

Fundación Karisma

Comisión Reguladora de Comunicaciones